John Birch Society

noun

1. an ultraconservative organization, founded in December 1958 by Robert Welch, Jr., chiefly to combat alleged Communist activities in the U.S.

John Birch Society

noun

1. politics a fanatical right-wing association organized along semisecret lines to fight Communism

John Birch Society

1. A conservative organization prominent in the 1950s and 1960s. The society was particularly concerned with the dangers of communism , and its views were considered extreme by most Americans.

Word History and Origins

Origin of John Birch Society¹

C20: named after John Birch (killed by Chinese communists 1945), American USAF captain whom its members regarded as the first cold-war casualty

Example Sentences

In the 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove,” the unhinged Gen. Jack D. Ripper declares that “fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face” — echoing the position of the John Birch Society.

From Los Angeles Times

Extremist right-wing groups like the John Birch Society and Ku Klux Klan looking for commies found them in the government, not only in the Department of State, but in the NIH, and began a campaign to end water fluoridation, which they saw as a Communist-inspired conspiracy to undermine the health of citizens and weaken the United States.

From Salon

This “Project 2025 for dominion theology” is against taxation, regulation and labor unions, and its theorists “were fellow travelers with states’ righters, the John Birch Society and, later, the Tea Party movement.”

From Salon

Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, is the author, most recently, of “Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right.”

From Salon

In fact, such doubts were sown almost as soon as fluoridation programs began rolling out in the 1940's, with The John Birch Society peddling a crackpot theory that fluoride transforms people into communists.

From Salon